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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618884">Always Thought I Might Be Bad</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior'>thesometimeswarrior</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Steven Universe (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Ficlet, Gen, Guilt, Identity Issues, Steven's Subtle Identity Crisis, season 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:09:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>406</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618884</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days, he’s afraid he doesn’t exist.</p><p>(Steven's identity crisis takes on new forms, after he learns that his mom was a Shatterer.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Always Thought I Might Be Bad</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place at the beginning of Season 4.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Some days, he’s afraid he doesn’t exist.</p><p>Well, doesn’t exist as <i>him</i> anyway. He thinks he’s probably Rose—Rose who’d forgotten herself, Rose who’d wanted to <i>grow</i>, wanted to be <i>free</i>, (Rose the <i>shatterer</i>), and whatever she’d—<i>he’d</i>—done before he was born had done something to his memory, so that he couldn’t remember. She’d, he’d, given himself amnesia, made himself weak and powerless, just so that he’d be able to <i>grow</i> into his powers, like she—he—had always wanted.</p><p>But he’d still done all those things she did. </p><p>Once, that had been the sweet in these bitters—he thought that she was so <i>amazing</i>, and he was <i>her</i>, and yes, it was sad, scary, that he wasn’t himself, but at least the person he really was was someone <i>awesome</i>. Someone benevolent, and kind, and always loving, who saw beauty in <i>everyone</i> and <i>everything</i>. The type of person who—if he wasn’t probably her—he’d <i>want</i> to be.</p><p>These days, though, it’s not sweet—not now that he knows who she (he) was, what she’d (he’d) done. Some days, he swears he can still feel those Pink shards in his hands, cutting into him, and he doesn’t think healing powers—tears or spit—would help.</p><p>Invariably, when he thinks of this, he lays a hand on his Gem, feel its boundaries, the spaces where its edges meet his flesh, and thinks about what it means to be embedded.</p><p>Then he thinks of Lapis, the mirror, how she had gasped and fallen when he’d taken her Gemstone out from inside it, and how her eyes look every time she thinks of it now, how she always calls it a prison.</p><p>On his worst days, he wonders if he’s not Rose Quartz at all, but, instead, if she is still there, inside him, still herself. If she’s trapped, and <i>he’s</i> her prison.</p><p>If that’s true, the noble thing to do would probably be to take her Gem out. Let her go like he did Lapis. </p><p>But he <i>loves</i> being alive, loves being <i>himself</i>, and he doesn’t know for sure, but he has a hunch that he can’t exist—or at least can’t exist as the same person he is now—without that Gem pulsing away like a cry for help inside his torso. </p><p>He <i>can’t</i> take it out, or he doesn’t <i>want</i> to…<i>He doesn’t want to…</i></p><p>So he doesn’t.</p><p>(He wonders if that makes him bad.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! I love comments!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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